Monthly Archives: May 2018

November 23, 2018

UWI Cave Hill, Barbados

CFP deadline: June 29, 2018

From the organizers:

The Department of Languages, Linguistics and Literatures at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill is inviting papers that explore themes related to Caribbean speculative fiction. The last two decades have seen an increase in the publication of SF works by Caribbean writers who bring a Caribbean sensibility to a genre that has been steadily gaining global academic recognition. These works encourage a re-examination of what constitutes Caribbean literature. They also challenge us to examine the nature of Caribbean SF, to ask how it differs from other geo-political/cultural writings in the genre, and whether or not writing in this genre helps us to understand the Caribbean’s presence on the global stage.

Abstracts of 250 words and a brief biographical note should be sent by Friday, 29 June 2018 to:

The overall 2018 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature was won by Trinidadian Jennifer Rahim’s short-story collection Curfew Chronicles(Peepal Tree, Aug 2017, 208pp). The award was announced on 28 April at the NGC Bocas Lit Fest in Port of Spain.

Also on the shortlist – and winner of the Poetry prize – was Shara McCallum’s collection Madwoman(Peepal Tree, Jan 2017, 72pp).

Caribbean Meridians

Confirmed Speakers: Alexis Wright (University of Melbourne) Michael Bucknor (University of the West Indies at Mona)

from the organizers:

AACS conferences are interdisciplinary and papers on all topics are considered, including from the natural sciences. Recent conferences have taken the themes of ‘Land and Water’ (Wollongong, 2015) and ‘Interiors’ (Canberra, 2017). For 2019 we are encouraging presenters to think about the ‘meridians’ that connect the peoples, cultures, ecologies, and histories of the Caribbean with those of other places around the globe.

Studies of Caribbean history and culture arguably have always been ‘transnational’, or at least oriented to thinking about the forces beyond the Caribbean that have shaped it. Most often this has been a matter of thinking about the relations between the Caribbean and the countries from whence its inhabitants largely have been drawn – especially Africa and Europe – as well as to the regional hegemon, the USA. The concept of the ‘meridian’ is chosen to encourage presenters to think about the lines of connection that spread from the Caribbean out to the world as whole. These encompass the Atlantic world but they also extend across the Western hemisphere and the Pacific to Asia, Oceania, and beyond. ‘Caribbean meridians’ encourage us to look for unusual, perhaps unexpected lines of connection or relation such as those that have spread south to Australia (‘meridian’ once meant ‘south’), as well as ‘South-South’ relations where ‘South’ refers to the ‘global South’. The idea of the meridian also reflects back on the Caribbean, which is criss-crossed with intra-regional connections that can escape scholarly notice.

Presenters might also like to think about the way in which the term ‘Caribbean’ affects the term ‘meridian’. The latter tends to evoke the straight lines of longitude that have come to govern relations of time and space. How do Caribbean perspectives inflect and alter conceptions of time, space, and/or world? How have the peoples of the Caribbean imagined the world and the kinds of connections and affiliations that bind it? Are there specifically Caribbean meridians?

Abstracts on all subjects and from all disciplines within the field of Caribbean studies are welcome. The primary criterion for selection will be the quality of the abstract, not its relevance to the conference theme. Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words along with a short title and two-line biographical note to aacsconf2019@gmail.comby September 14, 2018.